Every year around June, the local press publishes a "restaurants coming to Fort Worth" list. This year's list is different in one specific way that the roundups mostly bury: the openings aren't scattered across the metro. They cluster along a short spine that runs from a restored 1930s market on Henderson Street, through the Near Southside, over to West 7th and the Cultural District. If you live here, that geography is the story. You can plan a Saturday around it.
Here is what is actually opening this summer, where, and what to do about it before the crowds catch up.
The anchor: 1400 Henderson finally has a date
The Fort Worth Public Market building has sat as a "coming soon" promise for years. That changes this summer. Wilks Development is teaming with Chef Jenna Kinard, her husband Micah, and Kansas City restaurateur Christian Moscoso to revive the historic property with three concepts: Madrone, a fine-dining restaurant built around tasting menus and seasonal Texas ingredients; Willow, an upscale cocktail lounge; and Public Market Café & Goods, a community-focused cafe offering baked goods, coffee, and local products.
Chef Jenna Kinard and her husband Micah are leading three concepts inside the restored Fort Worth Public Market building at 1400 Henderson Street, a 90-year-old Mission Revival landmark that served as a farmers market for most of its history. The Madrone restaurant will offer a refined dining experience inside the restored Fort Worth Public Market, featuring chef's tasting menus focused on seasonal, local ingredients. The menu Kinard has previewed includes Texas wagyu tartare, deviled eggs, hamachi with mesquite bean miso, Gulf oysters, and other locally sourced dishes tinged with her signature Southeast Asian touch.
Timing to know: food and beverage concepts at The Harden at Public Market, including fine dining, a café and market, and a cocktail lounge, are all anticipated to open in mid-2026.
The building itself matters here. It originally served as a market space for local farmers, vendors, and retail businesses, was plagued with economic difficulties, and closed in 1941. Nearly a century of false starts, and it reopens the same summer the Near Southside gets its densest wave of new dining in memory.
The Near Southside spine
Walk south from Henderson and you cross into what has become the most concentrated new-restaurant corridor in the city.
Mariscos Cortez. The family behind Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez, the east side taqueria that has earned consecutive Michelin Recommended ratings in 2024 and 2025, is opening a seafood-focused spinoff at 1151 Martin Luther King Jr. Fwy, within walking distance of the original location. Founder Rogelio Cortez is targeting summer 2026.
Hiro's Kitchen. Hiroto and Nami Ochiai have been running Wednesday night pop-ups at The Holly wine bar on the Near Southside, and the reception was strong enough to make it permanent. Hiro's Kitchen is a counter-style sushi restaurant coming to the Near Southside this summer, built around omakase-style nigiri and sashimi, premium sake, and an open kitchen format where the chef walks you through every piece.
Duong DeVille. Chef Hao Tran is set to open Duong DeVille, a Vietnamese restaurant honoring the traditional food of South and Central Vietnam, with elevated dishes such as Bun Bo Hue, dumplings, rice cakes with shrimp, and vegan options. Everything will be locally sourced at the new restaurant, which will honor the memory of Hao's late father Ky Dinh Tran.
Nativo Café y Bodega. Karla Orta started selling plants out of the back of her RAV4, then her parents' driveway, and now she's opened both a native plant nursery and a café side by side at 1701 White Settlement Road. Nativo Café y Bodega sits next to Nativo Gardens with comfortable furniture, warm textures, and a drink menu rooted in Mexican heritage and Texas flavors.
Tinie's, revamped. Burciaga Hospitality Group's first project is Sarah Castillo's ode to her mother Christina, known as Tinie's, opened in a 1930s brick building in the Southside district of Fort Worth in March 2020. For the revamp, they hired Oaxacan chef Ix-Chel Ornelas Hernández to tweak the dinner menu with hoja santa-wrapped sea bass and Tampiqueña-style rib eyes that come with a cheese enmolada. If you've been upstairs to Escondite, the restaurant's bar open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, remember to return for molletes and chilaquiles during Sunday brunch.
Read that list together and it is not a coincidence of the calendar. It is the Near Southside consolidating a decade of pop-ups, food-hall stalls, and Wednesday-night residencies into permanent addresses within a few blocks of each other.
Downtown and West 7th bookend the spine
Downtown gets the other flagship. One of the city's most anticipated restaurants comes from the team behind The Mont, who turn their attention to a high-end Mexican restaurant opening this spring in the basement of the historic Hogan Building downtown. Designed by Fort Worth firm Maven, which also designed The Mont, the 7,000-square-foot restaurant will be open for quick downtown lunches and morph into a more leisurely dinner-and-drinks destination at night. That is Beverly's Downtown, at 901 Houston St.
A block off Houston, another debut. Almacén El Gallo will be the first original concept from the Burciaga Hospitality Group when it opens in Fort Worth's First on 7th building this summer, with a menu by chef Rodrigo Rivera-Rio, co-founder of Monterrey's awarded Koli Cocina de Origen.
Head west and the Cultural District picks up the thread with two very different openings.
| Opening | Where | What |
|---|---|---|
| The Dirdie Birdie | 2821 Morton St., West 7th District | Immersive indoor miniature golf course with a full restaurant and bar |
| Ave Modern Mediterranean | 2600 W. 7th St., Ste. 153, Montgomery Plaza | From the owners of Istanbul Grill and Chefika, with a full bar open until 2 a.m. on weekends |
| Salt & Straw | 1305 W. Magnolia Ave. | A west coast favorite made its second North Texas debut in June 2026 |
What to actually do this week
Openings are a calendar of intentions. Here is what is on the ground right now.
Wednesday, July 8. The Dirdie Birdie grand opening tees off at 11 a.m. The first 100 guests in the door will get a choice of free appetizer, free drink, or free round of golf. Menu standouts include Steak Frites, 24-Hour Coffee Braised Short Rib, and the brand new 7th Street Smash Burger.
Pickle party, Near Southside. Best Maid Pickle, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, will host an afternoon pickle party at their Near Southside souvenir shop with free pickle tastings, free pickle juice snow cones, sales up to 20 percent off, and photo ops with Smiley the Best Maid mascot from 12 to 3 p.m.
Second Sunday. The Fort Worth Community Market is a casual, open-air farmers and artisans market in the Near Southside adjacent to downtown, held on Second Sundays and spanning nearly a decade. Shop 75-plus homegrown and handmade vendors with live local music, an open-air bar, food trucks, and a kids play area at 105 S. Main St., 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with summer hours 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Sunday supper. Ellerbe Fine Foods serves a family-style supper of fried chicken with house-made bread and butter pickles and buttermilk dressing, mashed potatoes, greens, melon salad, and buttermilk biscuits, ending with peaches and cream cobbler. The price is $45, $15 for children 12 and under, with seating times from 5 to 8 p.m.
Stockyards, on the calendar
If you live here, you already know the rodeo runs weekly and Billy Bob's books deep. But the July lineup this year is unusually loaded for a mid-summer month:
- Jason Boland & the Stragglers, Friday, July 10, 2026
- Big & Rich, Saturday, July 11, 2026
- Carson Jeffrey, Thursday, July 16, 2026
- Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters, Friday, July 17, 2026
- Los Lonely Boys, Saturday, July 18, 2026
The pattern under the list
Roundups treat these openings as separate items on a menu. If you live in Fort Worth, they read differently. The Public Market gives the Near Southside a formal anchor at Henderson. The Cortez family plants a Michelin-recognized flag walking distance from an underserved stretch of MLK. Hao Tran and the Ochiais turn years of pop-up work into permanent addresses within blocks of each other. Downtown gets Beverly's and Almacén El Gallo the same season. West 7th picks up a Mediterranean brick-and-mortar, an ice cream flagship, and an indoor golf-and-dining venue in the same six-week window.
The through-line is that Fort Worth's dining geography, which has felt fragmented for a long time, is consolidating into a walkable corridor this summer. That is worth knowing before your out-of-town family asks where to go in August.
If this kind of neighborhood-level read is what you want from an agent when it comes time to buy or sell in Fort Worth, that is the practice Jennifer Frank has built here. Reach out for a consultation, browse private listings, or Get Your Instant Home Valuation to see where your home stands in a market that is changing block by block.
